Anita Sarkeesian
Anita Sarkeesian
Anita Sarkeesianis a Canadian-American feminist media critic, blogger, and public speaker. She is the founder of Feminist Frequency, a website that hosts videos and commentary analyzing portrayals of women in popular culture. She has received particular attention for her video series Tropes vs. Women in Video Games, which examines tropes in the depiction of female video game characters...
NationalityCanadian
ProfessionBlogger
Date of Birth15 August 1983
CountryCanada
people perfect creative
I really wanted to explore a range of women who aren't necessarily perfect, heroic women. I wanted to series to influence creative people to include more women in their work, especially historic works.
sick historical brain
When we look at these historical women and what they've gone through, it's shocking to recognize some of our own experiences in theirs. When you look at someone like Ada Lovelace who is the first computer programmer, during her lifetime doctors said that was really sick because she was trying to use a masculine kind of brain that she didn't have. Today, her legacy of being the first programmer is stil disputed.
smart not-good-enough brain
Maybe today we aren't being told that our brains are not capable of such things [like programming], but we [as a women] are being told that we are not good enough or smart enough or that our successes do not belong to us.
focus
I got to focus on my performance - learning how to perform is something I've been working on both personally and professionally.
ethical online
I find crowdfunding to be one of the most ethical ways to continue doing the work that we do because the idea is that I want my videos to be free and available to everybody, and that's why I use YouTube and online platforms.
animation
Ordinary Women was shot on a soundstage with a professional crew and a professional animation studio creating everything.
meaningful negative attention
The other thing is that it's really hard to separate out the harassment from everything we do. When we started creating Tropes, we were hyper-aware of the intense scrutiny, the intense harassment, and the intense pressure to do something meaningful given the attention both positive and negative. That's carried over in terms of making sure that I produce the best work that I can, that's the most accurate, the most sensitive and engaged.
helping
For me, if folks who are watching YouTube can pitch in a bit to help cover the cost for creating this work, that's great, but I don't want folks who can't helped to not have access to it. I really like the crowdfunding model in that regard.
girl growing-up fun
I want these to be names that young girls and boys and kids of all genders grow up knowing. It shouldn't just be when you take a feminist class in college, if you happen to do that. I hope this is fun and engaging for folks to watch.
developers entitled fantasy power recognize stories wider
Developers need to start moving away from the entitled macho-male power fantasy in their games. They need to recognize that there are wider stories that they can tell.
across board driven happening online women work
Online harassment, especially gendered online harassment, is an epidemic. Women are being driven out; they're being driven offline. This isn't just in gaming. This is happening across the board online, especially with women who participate in or work in male-dominated industries.
against backlash drives gaming tech women
There's a toxicity within gaming culture, and also in tech culture, that drives this misogynist hatred, this reactionary backlash against women who have anything to say, especially those who have critiques or who are feminists.
games helping huge plays role shape society
Games have a huge impact on our society because the media plays a role in helping to shape our attitudes. So it's not just fantasy.
constant continued enjoyed found games gaming high playing pushed relationship reminders school sexism time
My own contentious relationship with gaming continued through high school and college: I still enjoyed playing games from time to time, but I always found myself pushed away by the sexism that permeated gaming culture. There were constant reminders that I didn't really belong.